Wickens claims first win at Silverstone

Wickens made a sluggish start from pole position, and was third into the first corner behind front-row starter van der Garde and race one victor Salvador Duran.

Wickens redeemed his poor getaway by staying out five laps longer than the Dutchman before making his pitstop, and narrowly leapfrogged the leaders when he rejoined the track.

In clear air, Wickens had put in a strong sequence of laps, but both Van der Garde and Duran were left frustrated by a lack of blue warning flags while overtaking lapped traffic.

Wickens exited his pitstop side-by-side with van der Garde, but defended his position deftly into Becketts.

Van der Garde filed behind the Canadian on to the Hanger straight and, unable to mount a passing manoeuvre, chased Wickens to finish less than a second behind the Carlin car at the flag.

"There were no blue flags out there," said van der Garde, "and I think that is what cost me the win.

"I spent three laps behind Pablo Sanchez, losing two seconds, and then after making my pitstop there was another car that held me up, costing me at least another second."

The victory was no less deserved for Wickens, who maintained his edge over the opposition that was demonstrated in both qualifying and in the Super Pole sessions.

"I wasn't taking too many risks, and there was more in the car," said Wickens. "After the pitstops I went at 100% to pull away from Giedo, but I then decided to hold it back because it was not a good idea to attempt to maintain that sort pace."

Salvador Duran finished the race in a lonely third, struggling in the last two laps with only fourth and fifth gears operational.

There was an upturn in fortunes for Barry Walsh's Ultimate-Signature squad, as newly promoted driver Esteban Guerrieri held off team-mate Fabio Carbone for fourth place on the day when their British F3 sister team claimed a breakthrough win at Snetterton.

For all of van der Garde's disappointment, the P1 Motorsport driver has now leads the championship on 84 points, to the 40 of new second placed man Salvador Duran.

Pos  Driver            Team                   Time
 1.  Robert Wickens    Carlin Motorsport      42:37.544
 2.  G.van der Garde   P1 Motorsport          +   0.695
 3.  Salvador Duran    Interwetten.com        +  11.190
 4.  E.Guerrieri       Ultimate Signature     +  13.083
 5.  Fabio Carbone     Ultimate Signature     +  14.248
 6.  Marcos Martinez   Pons Racing            +  18.783
 7.  Marco Barba       International Draco    +  19.349
 8.  Alvaro Barba      Prema Powerteam        +  22.811
 9.  Marco Bonanomi    Red Devil Team Comtec  +  24.006
10.  Julien Jousse     Tech 1 Racing          +  24.264
11.  Guillaume Moreau  KTR                    +  26.929
12.  James Walker      Fortec Motorsport      +  27.763
13.  Charles Pic       Tech 1 Racing          +  39.619
14.  P.Di Sabatino     Red Devil Team Comtec  +  42.416
15.  Fairuz Fauzy      Fortec Motorsport      +  42.718
16.  B.Baguette        International Draco    +  43.239
17.  Máximo Cortes     Pons Racing            +  46.430
18.  Mikhail Aleshin   Carlin Motorsport      +  47.436
19.  Mario Romancini   Epsilon Euskadi        +  57.912
20.  Pippa Mann        P1 Motorsport          +  59.688
21.  Duncan Tappy      RC Motorsport          +  59.941
22.  Aleix Alcaraz     RC Motorsport          +  63.636
23.  Daniel Move       KTR                    +  81.331
24.  Pablo Sanchez     Interwetten.com        +  81.620
25.  A.Marsoin         Epsilon Euskadi        +  1 Lap
     Miguel Molina     Prema Powerteam        Retired